the story of kweejibo clothing co., a men's shirtmaker and shop, all locally manufactured
we publish a small portion of this ongoing series every one to two weeks--
pages 25 to 26
"neglect"
how to survive, designing a women's line known for some ravishing moments, and also some irregular strangely cut pieces, and in a terrible location. few know that we exist and our exclusive loyalists are recession-poor.
we have followers of our somewhat amusing ads in the local papers, but never actually come in to buy anything. San Francisco is a street-by-street town. someone must actually come to my specific part of that street, for a variety of other reasons, not just to buy objects such as clothing. If one sells clothing, it takes a certain reputation in order to become a destination. we are loved in theory, in a neglected fashion, an afterthought.
the Haight is always filled with so many street people, dead heads, raggedy hippie types, and so many shops which seem to reflect the street denizens' style, that one can overlook the fact that this is a seriously moneyed place.
a certain t-shirt shop on a prominent corner routinely scores four thousand dollars per day at this era. even in our poor kids' block, the bead store benefits enormously from the Nineties beading craze and has a four hundred percent markup and brisk daily sales. unlike the clothing business in our fair city, customers research and search out her product. beads, at this era, are the rage.
we have a camaraderie with our neighbors, the hair and piercing salon, the bead store and others; a camaraderie that extends to all-night parties at the historical home of said bead store owner. this 1860's house with soaring ceilings and doorways, giant sinks and other fixtures. these enormous features resemble the home of a family of giants. the house's enormous circular window has a ten foot diameter that looks onto Fell Street and Divisadero.
camaraderie is needed to counter some rough moments in the Haight. one can finally ask a street musician to move after hours of listening to his music outside the store, and encounter a bit of anger and resentment. occasionally, one arrives at work to find a large broken window...
"Carol, Las Vegas and alcohol"
i meet Carol one day, a seamstress who will make a lot of our custom feminine pieces, exquisite work. she is over six-feet tall, used to be a Vegas showgirl, with bosses in the mafia. her associates often had mafia boyfriends. there was no such thing as missing a show, for any of those girls, not even if they were stuck out on a lake with no gas in their motorboat. she attests that this is what happened to her one night. in San Francisco, she teaches ballet and also still performs for small local venues. she would get paid by me and say "i need to buy a bottle of whiskey". she is really a lovely thing, a good warm spirit, with a little boy and a hubby at home.
however, even her ravishing concoctions cannot save my business.
in late 1994, i become so desperate to pay my bills, i start to lobby one of the landlords in a busy section of Haight Street for a space in her building.
but i hear nothing. and as we roll into 1995, my own drinking starts. i learn to enjoy red wine too much, and learn about heavier clearer liquids, more powerful ones. i go out late and listen to music to accompany my drink. i become obsessed with the stereotypically difficult; musicians. they seem more exciting, more important when i drink. stress and drugged states encourage me to look for my own Idols to worship, those who are inaccessible. It takes one's mind off work.
i learn about gin, vodka. martinis. actually i am a little ahead of the trends. the dot-com years to come would put the martini on a pedestal. martinis make you think of the Forties, the Fifties, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, the Rat Pack. i owe everything to them, and to films like Swingers or to the character of Kramer of “The Seinfeld Show”. at this time, how many men adore saying things like "that is so money", Swingers dialect.
pages 26 to 29
"change"
i supplicate yet another idol, the Landlord of the Retail Space.
I spy a new empty store space. it is more truthfully a large closet, or the size of a bedroom, two hundred forty square feet, a tiny twelve foot frontage.
i am used to a good seven hundred square feet in my old store space, a good-size frontage, plenty of space with a back door directly facing the front, contributing to cooling breezes and a better flow of energy. i am used to so much space not just for merchandise, but for luscious decor, fixtures, femininity, glamor. now, there is nor more room for handsome turn-of-the-century fixtures, eccentric art pieces such as a hand-carved carousel horses, a handmade swing for two suspended from the ceiling by long chains.
those who do not understand the concept of flow of energy must try working in a claustrophobic one room space for awhile, with no back access and a busy street in front.
i note this new space has been empty for some time. i wait the better part of a year for a reply. i start to write Her impassioned letters, send pictures, drawings, even pieces of clothing, anything to get her attention. i speak often to one of Her tenants, who gives me tips on how to woo Her. this process draws out for a year, until one fine day, She calls me. those born wealthy and gods alike do not have to think of time and schedules in the way mortals do.
I am so overwhelmed by the preparations for the move to the new store in that October, 1995, i forget that I have not arranged the funds for the final deposit check. And She arrives, the Landlord, the afternoon before the grand opening to get the check. all without warning, I have not heard from her in ages.. It is five o’clock and I have no money in the bank.
I call my sister Jenny who becomes the Savior, the true reason anyone who has ever loved a Kweejibo shirt possesses one. she is both employed by and has an account at my bank. she manages to understand the noises I make over the phone. I am breathing so hard and so fast, sounds barely seem to manifest. she listens; I hear keyboard sounds from her end of the phone.
I run to the bank and get a cashier’s check just before closing, from the funds newly arrived just minutes before. opening day proceeds the next day, on October 29, 1995, the day before my birthday.
one runs a business out of love for it; or simply because one has no other choice but to keep going. because one will be bankrupt otherwise. I cannot decide which category I fit into at this point. I have been struggling week to week, day to day, to pay the bills. for years, i have been driving on this busy road. if i stop someone will surely hit me. there is nowhere to pull over. i arrive to a point where i would like to get out of my fast-moving vehicle.
if here is a way out, without bankruptcy, without disgrace, i would take it. no one will hand me fifty thousand dollars to pay off my debts and walk away, expecting nothing but gratitude in return.
we must skip back for a moment. back in 1994, we were supposed to be having the big moment, the year Kweejibo introduces men's wear. or so i thought. desperate to stimulate traffic in our serenely ravishing retro designs, we put together a Forties-inspired male clothing line. we have shirts, pants, vests, even jackets. very retro, pants almost baggy in their Forties sub-culture appeal.
Nothing changes. the men's clothing languish. no one who likes it who can pay. and there is still no walk-by traffic. local band, the Broun Fellinis, wear it, are photographed in it, shown in the local papers. people talk. Rina and Jane and Martine and i, all in our Kweejibo finest, are photographed. people talk more, we are given free drinks and free entry to places, but no sales.
"publicity and foot traffic"
we move to the other side of Haight-Ashbury, the busy side. men start to march into the store and walk out with one hundred dollar panel shirts without even trying them on. Once, we get busy, I never have to place another ad in the paper.
the panel shirts become our signature piece, Forties influenced, different fabrics pieced into the front. the Forties is a fantastic time for design. not only does everything look good, everything is purposefully cut in a way that is easy to make, and uses minimal fabric yardage.
this styling is an off-shoot of the depression era Thirties, a style of created in an era when one has to make do with less. many style historians consider the Thirties and the Forties two of our most elegant clothing periods. necessity does give birth to invention or a different creativity, an elegance born of a kind of spareness.
these qualities are enhanced by the latter wartime period of the Forties, when manpower and materials are scarce. this Forties style works well for those manufacturing on a small budget. the panel style is sustainable. we work endlessly with different fabrics, seeing what would be compatible in accenting a shirt. i cannot do it alone. all the workers have a say in the designs.
we search endlessly and find periodically that one fabric that ties it all together. the one fabric will bring out special qualities in the ordinary fabric. It will bring out the color in your eyes, your hair, give you vitamin D. people will ask if you have been working out or if you have lost weight.
we piece together panel shirts from two to four different fabrics, then add the final complementary fabric that will wrap everything up. we love our materials. a kind of meditation is in the choosing, the buying, the matching and blending, the envisioning. we find our form of prayer, a new fervor. An additional prayer, too, that the bills will be paid.
for those who think that panel shirts are some kind of “middle-aged men” phenomena, just recall or research. in 1994, pretty young men, who mostly liked girls, wore these shirts first. Rockabilly types with slick-backed hair, or lower-strata rock-stars. all kinds of young cute ones.
but Kweejibo is still not as busy as we had hoped to be. although the new space produces more sales in the first opening weekend than we have ever seen, the bills continue to loom large and swallow everything up in their path. the new sales figures are not good; they are just not as pathetic as the old figures.
continuing series